My Father Was Dying and My Binge Eating Spiraled Out of Control
My father was dying and I couldn't stop binging.
It was not something I was unfamiliar with. Stress, boredom, happiness, and unhappiness, were prime times for stuffing myself with ice cream, Oreos, and potato chips. My sessions took place past midnight and had started long ago in high school, when any strong emotion could send me rushing to the refrigerator.
And I told no one. How I didn't weigh 300 pounds was a mystery. I didn't purge, but I did fast — often going through days with only eggs and salad for sustenance. I also used laxatives and diuretics. There were times when I exercised compulsively — running a certain number of miles in the early morning or staying at the gym for hours lifting weights.
But then, come nightfall, I'd be back scouring the pantry looking for something to fill the emptiness.
I came upon my binging honestly — both my mother and my father (to some extent) were binge eaters. By day, my mother survived on cottage cheese and whole wheat bread, tuna fish, and tomatoes. She never, in my memory, joined us for meals when we were children, preferring to watch us eat and then later consume boxes of chocolate bridge mix and cartons of ice cream. My father, who had type 2 diabetes, was supposed to stay on a fixed eating plan, but at night he often consumed whole containers of peanuts.
Every Monday began with a new vow to stop, to eat three well-balanced meals, to go to bed at a reasonable hour, and not roam the kitchen. But neither of them succeeded. As a teenager, the morning trash revealed empty boxes of Raisinettes and ravaged bags of potato chips.
For years, I limited my binging sessions to a couple of times a week. But now my father was dying in at-home hospice care, and suddenly I found myself caught between my mother's needs for help, my father's sickness, my teenager at home, and my job.
I spent days driving back and forth from my parents' apartment and my house, fielding calls from work and family, trying to put out almost daily emergencies. By the time I reached home it was late, I had often missed dinner and, to calm myself down and avoid my terrible sadness, I turned more and more to food.
This time, I didn't exercise. I ate and ate and ate some more. Mornings I woke groggy and depressed, angry at myself for my lack of discipline and willpower.
All of this time I had been seeing a therapist. We talked about pretty much everything — family, work, sex. But we never had talked about food. It was the most private thing I had, a secret life that I couldn't bear to share. Or lose.
But as my father weakened, and my mother grew more and more angry and distressed at contemplating the loss of her husband of more than 60 years, I realized I needed help. And one day in June, I put my head down, drew a deep breath and confessed. I had a problem — a big problem — with food.
What I thought would happen next had kept me from sharing my obsession. I imagined the therapist would think less of me, would find me weak willed. But instead she sat quietly, then offered her judgment: "Given everything, I'd be surprised if you didn't have a problem."
To say it was freeing was an understatement. Simply letting the words into air made me realize that somehow, I was going to beat this back. My therapist wrote down a number for a woman who was both a therapist and a nutritionist, who made me realize I had the power to ask myself why I was eating and the power to say no. That my eating was not going to save my father's life, or make my mother happier, or solve any of the other problems that I had tied up with food.
I'm not a skinny mini. I still want to lose those last 10 pounds. There are days when I find myself regressing and eating a bit more snack food than I should at night. But it's been three years since I stood in front of the pantry shelves and cleaned them off methodically, one by one.
It didn't happen overnight. It took a few months to get used to eating regular meals; it took more than a few months to figure out that when I am bored, or lonely or sad or happy that I can do something else with my hands and heart than drown my feelings in food.
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